dragonblade_94 t1_j9h51sq wrote on February 21, 2023 at 11:01 PM

Reply to comment by 69inthe619 in Would the most sentient ai ever actually experience emotion or does it just think it is? Is the thinking strong enough to effectively be emotion? by wonderingandthinking

You're shoving a lot of words in my mouth.

>the burden is on you to provide any evidence whatsoever that the only requirement for being able to feel and express emotions, both tangible and intangible, love or pain or both simultaneously, is a sensor and raw data.

I'm not here to play burden tennis with you, especially not in a heavily philisophical debate based on theoretical technology. Nor did I ever list out the requirements of emotion being "a sensor and raw data." The basis of my position is the idea that there is nothing inherent and exclusive about the human body that requires natural reproduction to be made manifest. This was the intent behind my homunculus example; I want to know what you consider to be the definining difference, whether it be the existence of soul, a creator, free-will, whatever.

>by your logic, the only thing the world needs to permanently solve all depression everywhere is raw data on happy because we already have senses

From a causal deterministic standpoint, yes it would be theoretically possible to control a person's emotions using controlled stimuli. This idea falls adjacent to Laplace's Demon, a concept that describes a theoretical entity that knows the state of every atom in the universe, and can therefor perfectly tell the future. Such an entity could in theory use the same knowledge to make adjustments in a way that changes a person's thought process.

The problem here is twofold; first we simply don't have the level of technology needed to fully map and understand the human brain structure. In order to affect the brain for a precise outcome, we need to know exactly how it works down to the smallest scope. Second, we would need a computer or other entity capable of storing information on and simulating not only a given brain, but every possible interaction and stimuli that could affect it (essentially the universe). Outside of some fantastical technological revelation, this makes perfect prediction and control virtually impossible.

What we can do though is crudely alter the chemicals in the brain & body to simulate different states of mind. Medications such as anti-depressants contain chemicals that, when received by the receptors in your brain, forcibly shift your brain function. Chemicals and electrical impulses would be our equivalent to internal 'data.'

>and your logic says those are exactly equal to sensors

Again, never said they were exactly equal, but rather they can be created to serve the same purpose. I wouldn't even consider this controversial; the existence of bionic eyes or cochlear implants, allowing blind and deaf people to see and hear, grounds this in present reality.

69inthe619 t1_j9ix0tn wrote on February 22, 2023 at 8:07 AM

this is not a philosophical, scientific, or even a debate if you consider organic and inorganic matter to be all the same. if it was the same, there would not be a difference, but there is. by refusing to acknowledge that there is anything special about life which we are yet to find anywhere else in the universe, you have oversimplified to the point where you are trying to recreate the mona lisa by finger painting. a $50 bag of inorganic matter from an abandoned radio shack clearance bin can not be magically converted by an inorganic ai to have the necessary qualities of organic matter while remaining inorganic and spontaneously producing feeling, emotions, and lets not forget the leap you take by jumping from the simple input of the data to generating sentience. are you going to say the only thing sentience requires is the same data that emotion requires? if you think that, congratulations, you know absolutely nothing about quantum physics where everything exists as only a probability wave. it is there, where quantum probability intersects with the organic matter of your brain in the physical world, where sentience is possible. sentience is not something that came to be just for fun, life does not expend energy making unnecessary things like five legged humans, it evolves what it needs to survive out of sheer do or die necessity. and sentience is absolutely essential in order to navigate a universe where at the foundation, there is only a probability of something, and there is also a probability it is not. you better be able to handle any outcome simultaneously so you can do basic things, like make a split second decision that will decide if you escape certain death and live to reproduce, or die. the only thing that life can not afford, death before reproduction. in that context, sentience is the only thing separating successful reproduction and the continuation of the cycle of life and death before reproduction and the end of life. but hey, sentience will just happen if you read enough books, right?

and no, a quantum computer does not recreate the quantum mechanics with organic matter in your brain so that is nit a save for you. also no, quantum computing is not the answer to every problem everywhere because there is an entire set of mathematical problems that do not have a single answer because there is an “infinite” number of pathways to get there so computing the answer is not even possible to begin with (ie: the traveling salesman). infinite makes computers compute infinitely, and that means no soup for you or your ai. this doesn’t take into account all of the equations and constants baked into the universe that prevent the universe from being computable in any practical way. think pi. 3.14…. an infinite number that repeats infinitely across the universe in every single sphere in existence. and gosh darn it, there is that infinite thing that makes computers compute infinitely. now you have to start all over, again.

if acting like it and being it are no different, then han solo is a living breathing actual han solo thinking human being and not harrison ford because i have seen the star wars movies and he is acting like it is real so by golly, it is just as real as reality just like the ai acting like it has feelings is just as real as having feelings. who taps out in a pain endurance contest between you and your ai that read about pain in a book so it can provide a pained response to a hypothetical pain? i imagine you have a .001% chance of outlasting the ai, but not because of you, or even the ai, you get that .001% because the quantum element to this universe makes it impossible for there to ever be a 100% certainty of any future outcome. but hey, at least you have sentience, just like that bag of scrap from radio shack (once you get around to watering it with data).